A Baltimore County Circuit Court judge ruled last week that Baltimore County’s contract with its speed camera vendor is illegal, because it allows the contractor to get a cut of every ticket generated. Although Judge Susan M. Souder’s ruling dismissed only a single ticket, this decision is believed to be…
Articles Posted in Auto Accidents
Trying to Get Defendant’s Bad Behavior Into Evidence
Last week, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals upheld a small verdict in a truck accident case. The issue was the exclusion evidence of the defendant fleeing the scene after a car accident, even though plaintiffs put on a good case that the act of fleeing itself caused the plaintiff’s…
New Bad Faith Opinion from Louisiana
Louisiana’s Court of Appeals last month issued an unpublished opinion in Rando v. Furr, a case that dealt with the ins-and-outs of uninsured motorist coverage and bad faith claims. Here’s what happened: A man was driving his motorcycle and was involved in an awful collision with a pickup truck driven…
New Rules for Medicaid Liens in Maryland
Liens Against your Case Medicaid is tough to deal with when they have a subrogation lien against your case. With some wonderful exceptions, they are often inflexible about reducing your clients’ lien, which is to say that they won’t unless the lien is greater than 50% of the net recovery…
Dollar for Dollar Comp Setoff in Uninsured Motorist Cases
We often handle car and truck accident cases for victims who were working at the time of the crash. (I guess a motorcycle accident claim could also be while the employee is on the job – but I have never had or seen that case.) In these types of cases,…
New Maryland Ethics Opinion Ends Annoying Defense Tactic
Defense lawyers and insurance companies have this irrational fear of an unpaid lien holder coming back and claiming the insurance company must reimburse for the unpaid debt. Sure, some adjusters and lawyers push this issue because they are pathologically difficult. But I also think they have an earnest belief that…
How Much is a Car Accident Claim Worth?
Click to enlarge How much is a car accident claim worth? It really depends on how you adjust your lens. According to Jury Verdict Research, the median jury award for plaintiffs’ verdicts in 2010 for vehicular accidents was only $19,806. That’s not much. Yet the average award in a vehicle…
Are We the Worst Drivers in America? Yes and No.
So, Allstate has published its eighth annual report of cities with the worst drivers. Given the publisher of the study, I immediately began searching for some hidden bias. Apparently, we are in the eye of the storm. Washington D.C. is ranked first – which means worst – with Baltimore City…
Can the Defense Expert Say the Plaintiff Is Lying? No, But Maybe You Should Let Him Anyway
Defense lawyers are reluctant to say that the plaintiff is lying. They will insinuate, suggest, intimate, and any other verb you can think of to lead that horse to water, but they will rarely come out and say it. It is largely a trial tactics decision, but it is also…
Is Your Client’s Motorcycle Accident Covered by Her Uninsured Motorist Policy?
The purpose of uninsured motorist coverage – which most of us blindly have because our state requires it – is for protection if we get hit by a driver with no insurance or not enough insurance to provide compensation for our injuries. Most uninsured motorist policies compensate the victim for…